Chronology of former CCfW’s interactions with WG – tone and content.

In 2021, the former Children’s Commissioner for Wales, Sally Holland, published the chronology of her interactions with the Welsh Government in relation to elective home education.

It is a very long document.
in it, Ms Holland is referred to as SH, the Welsh Government as WG, CCfW Children’s Commissioner for Wales.

Several key factors and recurring themes stand out,
And would seem to still be an influencing factor today:

Attitude towards home educators.

Those who followed lawful remits and duties and expected council staff to do the same, are repeatedly termed

“active refusers”.

Indeed, there is reference to such families being

“already recorded as Active Refusers”.

Note the capitalisation, as used in the chronology, connoting a title or name.

And just where have these “Active Refusers” been “already recorded”?
Were they aware of where they were being “recorded”- does this mean their details were somehow recorded in documentation or files to label them as such?

Not only are these “Active Refusers” somehow “already recorded”,

But Ms Holland would seem to want some form of action against them, some to “happen” with or to them.

“SH also wants to have confidence that the consultation will have measures as to what will happen with active refusers. WG working on this now; couldn’t yet say what this looks like.”

This is mirrored in the comments:

“fair minority of parents that will resist visits, so CCfW asked how are LAs being empowered so”

“how will the practitioner respond any differently to resistant families than under the current arrangements?

Ms Holland complained that:

“Families are communicating with each other and have created template letters quoting the primary legislation to support them declining visits”

It would seem somewhat strange to criticise families for understanding their lawful duties and responsibilities, being able to quote these and desiring to adhere to these.

It would also seem somewhat strange and contradictory to express concerns about families being in contact and communication with each other, given that she states her concern is about “hidden” or “invisible” children.

Indeed, if it is only “hidden” children that are of concern, then how can that justify ongoing monitoring and surveillance of all EHE families?

That rhetoric towards families is repeated elsewhere:

“Group feeling was that parents really know their rights under the current system, know they don’t have to engage and will say so”.

Not only is there the same remarkable complaint about families behaving lawfully,

But note the misrepresentation of their actions in “don’t have to engage”.

If EHE families don’t engage at all when a council makes informal enquiries about their educational provision, then councils can and do commence legal proceedings under the presumption that if no information or response is provided then it can be concluded that education is not being provided or received (Phillps vs Brown 1980 usually being cited if this is the case).
So, Ms Holland can’t be referring to families actually “not engaging”.
What is being referred to here given the context and surrounding comments is parents who do engage, but engage in fully lawful ways, for example via written communications.

Ms Holland would seem to be falsely representing families lawfully engaging in ways other than visits or meetings as “not engaging”

it is notable that this same terminology and rhetoric of falsely referring to engaging in ways another than agreeing to requests for visits/meetings are not engaging was recently repeated in the Welsh Government commissioned evaluation of their present EHE guidance. That evaluation was completed by former Welsh Government staff based upon interviews with council staff but not EHE families or representatives, and referred to home educators as “resisting”, resistant”, “refusing” and even “adversarial” for adhering to lawful remits.

It would appear that WG had underestimated not only the passion and concern from home educators in advocating to protect their children’s education and wellbeing, but also their competence and determination in doing so.

Referring to response to the 2019 consultation, SH states. “WG didn’t anticipate the technical and legal detail within the majority of responses, and they weren’t just copied and pasted so the analysis is time consuming (referring to 2019).”

Would these meetings with children be nice cosy pleasant chats?

To quote the chronology:

“shift the meaning of the meeting, rather than an ‘informal chat’ they would now be needing to convey that they are assessing suitability of education which might make families very defensive and more difficult to reach”.

Surely informed consent and a full awareness of rights and the reasons for the interview would be necessary for meetings that clearly carry profound implications in terms of potential legal action against families.

Did SH demonstrate in her chronology a desire or intention to support home educated children as well as “see” them?

“The position is even more confused now as LAs were given a new element in the grant last week – £40k to support this agenda but for access to exams etc. so this could just encourage families to stay out of school.”

This would seem a quite remarkable comment, for a Children’s Commissioner to appear to be concerned that children had been given support such as improved access to examinations.

It also risks conveying a tone of institutionalised discrimination, giving the appearance of a belief that school is better, that children should be in school.

Bear in mind these are families who have children that have received a suitable enough education to be sitting exams and engaging with the LA for support in accessing these. Not exactly the concept of “hidden ones” that she had said was her concern.

So, if these are families with children who are well educated and not “hidden”, why should there be concern about them? Surely their achievements should be celebrated?

Desire to “change behaviour” of healthy loving law-abiding families.

“Many families will change behaviour when the framework is changed, but there will always be families outside this.”

Reference to consideration that introduction of some changes “would need to ‘bed in’ first” before introducing more.

“LAs should develop services with families to seek buy in.”

“fair minority of parents that will resist visits, so CCfW asked how are LAs being empowered”

Could one be forgiven for reading these as if were attempts at some form of social engineering?

Is it acceptable to try to coerce families to change their behaviour in ways they would not have chosen otherwise, to suit the opinions, views and ideologies of another?

The “three tests”

Ms Holland had come up with what she termed “three tests” which she wished applied to any approach on policy or engagement with home educators:

“First, that all children in Wales can be accounted for and that none are invisible.

Second, that every child receives a suitable education and their other human rights, including health, care and safety is protected.

And third, that every child is seen and their views and experiences are listened to. This is essential for the first two tests to be met”.

The present CCfW’s office still claims to hold to these.

However, these three tests have three intrinsic flaws.

(1) These are the duties of the parent not the state

(2) They presume that parents are NOT doing them unless proven otherwise (guilty until proven innocent)

(3) They assume unprecedented state powers must be given to oversee families for children to be “heard” and “seen”, that children are only considered “heard” and “seen” if this is by council staff employed to do so. The three tests disregard all the other ways that children are heard and seen.

Did the Welsh Government agree?

“WG also noted that they don’t think that LAs must see children all of the time”. (2018)

Why weren’t her proposals enacted?

It would appear because the Welsh Government were aware of the likelihood that they would be challenged in a Judicial Review.

If they were confident that the path they were taking was lawful and necessary, then surely that should not have been a concern?

With reference to WG decision to not pursue turning her desires to mandate visits and meetings into laws:

“What information was presented to the decision makers in order for that decision to be taken? Ministers were presented with a range of information to take into account before making a final decision on priorities including a range of scenarios and mitigating actions. As part of the decision-making process, we were also provided with information on the amount of Welsh Government resource and an analysis of the level of complexity involved in each of the areas, for example in this instance, there was a high probability that the proposals would be subject to legal challenge (judicial review/JR). “

with Sally Holland’s comment on this in the adjacent column of the chronology table being:

“It is hard to avoid the conclusion, in the absence of other available evidence, that this has been the driving factor behind this decision”

This is paralleled in the statement of the then Cabinet Secretary for Education, that the government were not able to take such measures forward at that time as in the consultation “significant number of the many responses also raised complex technical, policy and legal matters which require careful consideration”.

a potential addition reason for not enacting her proposals could potentially be extrapolated from the reference to funding challenges on other aspects:

“Huge concerns raised by LAs around capacity and funding to meet requirements of the new ALN Act in relation to EHE.”

How did SH and WG respond to QC opinion at that time?

SH states “Legal challenge by ‘Protecting Home Education in Wales’ crowd funded advice from David Woolfe QC. WG response to this: this challenge is flawed because it states the guidance suggest meetings are statutory and it doesn’t, it states should”

This shows a somewhat remarkable lack of grasp of what David Wolfe QC said in that report. He had clearly explained that the concept of “should”, combined with the footnote referenced, goes too far in the eyes of the law by suggesting an obligation.

He explained that the weighting given to the word “should” gave the misleading impression that it was some form of requirement or obligation.

Interestingly,

SH here emphasise that the guidance does not make meetings mandatory but makes some rather contradictory complaints.

There appears to be discontentment that a QC had said the guidance conveys the appearance of these being a requirement,
And yet elsewhere appears to be unhappy that parents realise that the guidance does not convey a requirement.
Without there being any acknowledgement of the contradiction in this reasoning.

It gives the impression of wanting legal teams to believe one thing and parents to believe another, which, if the case, would appear to be a somewhat paternalistic and authoritarian approach to the children and families that meant to be representing and advocating for.

Any indication of not understanding home education?

SH refers to “requests” to deregister.

“Request” would mean permission is required.

This is not the lawful situation, and certainly was not at that time.

Deregistration is an instruction with immediate effect from the person with parental responsibility, not a request.

This is because under s7 of the Education Act of 1996, the duty to ensure a child receives a suitable education lies with the parent. It does not lie with the state.

Incidentally, that parental duty under s7 remains the same under the CWS Bill, that section is not changed by that Bill.

SH spoke of a need to “resolve the issues identified regarding home education.” It would be intriguing to know quite what the issues are with parents lawfully raising their own children, what the evidence base is for these.

Heavy reliance on the case of poor Dylan Seabridge.

Without acknowledgement that this poor child was known to social services, where existing powers were not used to follow up concerns expressed.

Yet again, the failing was lack of appropriate use of existing powers, not the lack of new ones.

The reliance on such cases to try to prove a need for the measures in the CWS Bill is explored in another post on this page, Spreading limited funding and resources even more thinly to put ordinary families under mandatory monitoring would make it even more difficult for the appropriate staff to be able to focus on children who need intervention or follow up adequately on reports and concerns.

Intimations and threats of SAOs for families not agreeing to visits.

“WG view is that if they refuse a visit and there is no reasonable reason for this, this should prompt further conversations within the LA, and this will be linked to the safeguarding aspects of the guidance. If they still refuse, the LA should escalate to SAO or other provisions to seek access”

Who gets to decide what is a “reasonable reason”?

Is not informed consent and the capacity of the parent or child to say no not a “reasonable reason”? Is not the voice of the child to be respected?

Interesting comments by others within this chronology

According to this document, despite how Philips v Brown 1980 is so often cited and used as mentioned above, LA lawyers noted that lack of evidence alone should not be enough for a prosecution. They are quoted as saying that in order to prosecute families for non-compliance of SAOs there be “positive proof” of lack of education.

And tellingly,

SH commented and recommended in 2020:

“WG are exploring a system/process for appeals so if the LA concluded that education is not suitable, there could be a stage before SAO for it to be heard by an impartial party perhaps. Showing reasonable steps have been taken before getting to SAO (evidence) as well as giving families opportunities. Members of the community could be a panel member – this came from their consultation responses so should be welcomed“.

So, the WG were aware of the need for an “impartial” “system/process for appeals”.

SH recommended them.

Said the concept “should be welcomed”.

But six years later, no hint of any such systems or processes,

And not even a mention of these in the clauses of the CWS Bill which Welsh Government are seeking to apply to Wales.

So – seeking markedly increased powers,

Over families referred to in derogatory terms for exercising lawful duties within lawful remits, And no system of accountability for LA conduct.

One response to “Chronology of former CCfW’s interactions with WG – tone and content.”

CWS Bill – Effectively “Mandatory” meetings with parents and children in their own home. – Wellbeing in Education Wales

February 11, 2026 at 12:40 am

[…] In terms of the Welsh Government, they appear to continue to be influenced by the former Children’s Commissioner for Wales Sally Holland’s reviews and comments, […]

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